photo borrowed from http://lang-8.com/77364/journals/1119949
WATCHING SAMURAI X or a similar anime
series on TV the other day, I noticed a certain resemblance to the Peter
Jackson-helmed The Lord of the
Rings trilogy
effect---effect on me, at least, as a passer-by viewer. So, you can just
imagine its effect on the
anime fan! The effect I'm
talking about is anime's potential propagandistic charisma value that the
Japanese probably are aware of. Now, I am not so much talking about the
content, which may vary from anime to anime (albeit a constant pattern may be
gleaned by any curious social scientism). I’m more inclined to talk about and
celebrate the virtue of fantasy in the hands of The Good, wherein some
Hitlerian (or Hirohito-ish) grandiosity must be restrained from temptations that might allow it to express either some inner Big Hate or some Gargantuan Intellectual Philosophy of
Greed. Because, believe me, this charisma value can be quite charming.
Anime cartoons are fantasy cartoons in more ways than one.
They neither pretend to be realistic comedy cartoons nor do they kowtow to the
category of children’s programming. Anime is considered an art in
itself, involving a fantastic plot and a fantastic power object portrayed via
another Japanese fantastic achievement: the anime eyes.
Now, anime eyes are a Japanese vehicle for
escape from the global stereotype on Orientals as squinty-eyed, but its design
goes further than the Western man’s larger eyes to produce in the end a
different nation that’s ultimately quasi-Japanese and quasi-Western, the
citizens of which Different Nation inhabit a globally-marketable art. Add to
this, anime characters’ hair color try to eschew ground level by exploring the
possibilities of dis-blacking. This style propagated a trend in Japan of
color-dyed hair among the youth (and later the middle-aged) previously only
plausible in the urban planet among so-called fashion punks.
Much has been said by many a lay philosopher today about the
escapism of fantasy literature and art vis a vis the boldness of realism and
allusive expressionist passion. The Lord
of the Rings trilogy of
the Lord Dunsany school of literature which was delivered through the genius of
J.R.R. Tolkien have influenced fantasy lovers way before the book's story was
made into three special-effects breakthroughs, as had the pioneering progressive rock
of Yes and King Crimson and Uriah Heep and the psychedelic blues-rock of Led
Zeppelin, as have later oeuvres of high-tech special effects such as the George
Lucas-written and -megged fantasy classic Star
Wars. However, in the
liberal press today, fantasy art is given credence as serious art only when
driven by artists and authors surrounded by a traffic of political oppression
(within a geo-political or ethnic boundary); these artists’ works supposedly
hide or enhance a political satire or symbological value. When flaunted by
artists in happy surrounds, however, fantasy art is often deemed by the liberal
or even conservative snobbish critic as simple fantasy devoid of any socially-redeeming significance as art.
In the age of post-structuralism and Marxist criticism,
however, reviewers have been given easy license to read (or over-read) almost
anything into anything, thus the term cultural studies, the only universal
rule being that the reading maintains integrity within the construct. This certainly went further
than Marcel Duchamp's now-lame proposal that anything exhibited in a gallery
may qualify itself as art. (Certain thinkers decry integrity in reading,
meanwhile, celebrating entropy and disavowing criticisms against "unintelligent" readings by the masses.) So Star
Wars can now be taken
into a classroom and deconstructed to fit any personal or political agenda into
the work, and that is not anymore considered shameful. Indeed, we can say that
in our age artworks are liberated from the author-dictated (or New Critics-proposed)
moral, and are now surrendered to the intelligence or lack thereof of the masses
or the masses’ favorite authority critic (who may then offer various readings
or approaches to the consumer masses), thus, finally, dis-glamorizing snobbery. So why, we ask, does
fantasy art still manufacture frowns from authorities at Cannes or Stockholm?
Perhaps because post-structuralism, supposedly masses-friendly but ridden with
academic gibberish of a new snobbishness, didn’t exactly create a trickle-down
effect upon magazine reviewers. In the end, it's as if post-structuralism has
yet to happen and history continues to flow on unhindered as a manifestation of
the law of God consisting of repetitions and second comings devoid of academic
views and lessons. Devoid, that is, of both the fantasy of a hermeneutics from
a campus distance or the social hermeneutics delivered through a distantly fantastic
construct aided by alcohol or drugs or the naturally imaginative individual.
There will always be the divide between realists and
expressionists, but the divide between these readily-popular alluders and their
fantasy art counterparts are wider still. And this will remain an interesting
kind of divide, with the former not confronting the latter but ignoring the seriousness of their lot, never mind that this lot
comprises the higher percentage of the mythology of the populace.
Realists will, however, not begrudge fantasy artists their "rightful" place in society. Today's anime cartoons, along with
fantastic movies like The Lord
of the Rings, not only
create entertainment offering momentary escape from our dirty laundry and the
depressing art films from the festivals and the subtle artistry from Congress'
halls, they also inspire creativity with measure. Such measure is easy where
the art (with its accompanying creativity) is almost an end in itself. As in clothes fashion. L'art pour l'art. Many fine cinema
techniques can be traced to comics art, in the way technology traces its
achievements to basic science. Were anime not fantasy, I doubt that it would
come up with the visual quirks (lighting, color, lines, etc.) that are in the
level of what theatre people and fashion ramp aficionados proudly refer to as
meaningless creative faggotry beloved of Broadway.
But what do we make of it when certain fantasy artists,
beyond the academicized critics, proclaim on their own their arts’ realist side, that is, their social
significance beyond the merely entertaining or l’art pour l’art (read:
decorative) value? Do we take them seriously? Have we really taken science
fiction seriously beyond the claims of the college curriculum, at this same
podium where we’ve regarded magic realism with awe?
Perhaps the answer is that fantasy is simply too much of an
achievement of metaphors. The "real world" already abounds in perceivable metaphors . . . so,
why create another mythological world? And, conversely or accordingly,
everything is fantasy anyway. A paragraph that describes a coffee break in a
Milan sidewalk café might read as fantasy to a University of the Philippines Diliman student from the province who saves up on his allowance to be able to
sip at Starbucks on his weekend.
As for realism, I wonder how realist it really is. An early
literary movement called Naturalism claimed more real realism in the portrayal
of the helplessness of the individual as victim of his surround, beyond salvage
by the fantasies of revolutionists. And although this genre (as in the talents
of a Eugene O'Neill or Alexander Solzhenitsyn) clamored for a kind of
counter-revolution (Solzhenitsyn against a continuing communist
"morality," for example), the Naturalist’s art itself had to portray
a reality first; not the reality of omniscient organizers of reality but the
reality of the imprisoned denied vision of anything beyond the four walls of
his cell (and inner cell). Therefore, to the Naturalist, so-called Realism is
fantasy. Ernest Hemingway’s own type of quasi-inner naturalism already regarded
realists as suspect.
But fantasy art's role, like anime, will continue to be
equated with the functions of background music, chandeliers, relaxant drugs, tapestries,
or postcards. Entertaining tools, mere artisans’ produce. Which does not
exactly sound demeaning or insulting, but yet decidedly relegated to a lower
echelon in the kingdom of criticism.
Perhaps this is all cultural. The miracles in the Bible are
not viewed by Christians as fantastic but rather as historical (or
quasi-historical). And as for being a matter of degree, with realist art
having more reality in it than fantasy, fantasy having less, this theory
likewise turns suspect when we start to consider the claims of science fiction
or fantasy literature authors that humanity exists purportedly not in the world
of the "real" but in the inner landscape we carry with us everyday.
This inner landscape could actually be in any setting at all, they'd say. So, a Milan café
is no more real than a cave in Mars. And wherever fiction is located, the same
real human principles apply, as it did among the power-brokering and struggles
developing in The Lord of the Rings or Spiderman or Winnie the Pooh. As it does in the amazing
cartoons of anime art. They might claim that an utter removal from readily-allusive reality creates that distance that allows humanity to focus on the principles by themselves, not on some trivial facts of everyday politics.
For, sure, imaginativeness or creativity is probably exercised fully in
fantasy literature and art (being armed with a freedom like those on the
shoulders of basic-science researchers, unless pressured by a direct
corporate or market demand). But one’s understanding of human behaviour is also
exercised here. Wouldn't present human behaviour be better exposed in a sci-fi
novel? These same exercises among fantasy authors and artists are also
operational in fantasy readers and viewers. After all, when we come right down
to basics, seeing the category "Fiction" in a magazine automatically
relegates pieces in this zone to the level of fantasy vis a vis the claimed realism or objectivity of the news, and
the reader accepts this fantasy, suspending disbelief in his submission. It’s
time we admit that all art is nothing but fantasy, and that therefore our first
obligation as artists is to art itself, avoiding being boring or un-fresh, especially when ready realist allusions realistically point to boring trivia about figures in current history, veering away from the distance of the mythologizing process of art.
THE RECENTLY-concluded US elections were
full of fantasy and realism. A lot of real facts about George W. Bush’s and
friends’ businesses in the Middle East were touted by his camp’s
defenders as mere lies, and a collection of political measures and war-machine restraint in contender
John Kerry as unrealistic.
Meanwhile, some of us in the social liberal side of the globe were amazed at the
restraint that Kerry displayed in avoiding mention of such red meat potentials
against G.W. Bush as United Defence or Unocal, which Green Party candidate Ralph Nader (armed with
the l'art pour l'art freedom to spill the most conservative-offending beans)
would have no qualms mentioning and offering to the media head-on. Which filmmaker Michael Moore, as critic of both Republican and Democrat meta-narratives, had no
reservations in exposing. Which Fox News, for all its denials of being a
Republican propaganda bus stop, made open efforts to deny.
Fantasy and realist portrayals are two approaches to the
same thing---Art, which draws the myths and illusions of every profession and
its accompanying uniform, of every business enterprise with its marketing, of every
political career with its restraints and compromises, of every greed with its
blueprint scheme and impending grand architecture, of every religious mission,
and---finally---of every nation’s delusion, escapism, or self-imaging designs.
But the only truly realist portrait is an inner one, because it draws the mythological and propagandistic face of a winner. This
winning, however, is made possible by the art and lie of the imagination, combined with a restraint towards realist allusion. It is what makes all fantastic realities succeed. They succeed by virtue of an acceptance of their own mythology, which acceptance gives them the moral license to bare others' myths.
